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Wednesday, 6 May 2009

Recently I've been made aware of the incredible work of the 'Invisible Children' charity. The charity was founded by three young filmmakers from California who visited Uganda in 2003 and were appalled by the situation they found surrounding the northern part of the country's children. They discovered the tragedy that is the Lord's Resistance Army, a terror organization fronted by Joseph Kony who kidnap children and train them to be killing machines. The three young men have since become involved in a global campaign to create awareness of the so-called 'Invisible Children', in an attempt to gain political support and raise funds to care for the children and put a stop to the injustices that are happening in the country.

Their marketing campaign is driven by people's personal stories, stories which us in the Western world can empathize with and that may lead us to make a stand for these desperate children. The story that came to my attention is that of a young woman called Grace. I bought a bracelet from the website and received with it a DVD of her story, which is tragic but also signifies a new hope despite the terrible situation.

Here is an extract from the booklet...

"Grace, the story of a child mother... Abducted from her home at 10 years old and forced to fight as a soldier, Grace was beaten repeatedly for three years, and at 13 was forced to become a sex slave to a 40 year old commander in the L.R.A, After her narrow escape from the bush, with a gunshot wound to the leg, she discovered she was pregnant with the commander's child.

Once rescued, girls like Grace are taken to a rehabilitation centre where they are given just three months of psychosocial therapy, before they are returned to the family they may or may not have.

Due to the severity of Grace's medical condition (a shattered tibia, and her approaching birth), she remained at the centre for over a year.

But returning home will not be easy. With an absent father, she will live with her uncle, left to care not only for her own child, but for her own disabled mother as well. Grace is a child, but she is a mother.

The idea of Grace is about choosing to forgive when others have done nothing but hurt and let you down. Grace has a smile bigger than the size of her pain."

The question I ask, is this. How can we sit back in our comfortable, over indulgent lives, and hear these children's stories and not do anything to help them? It disgusts me that we are so stinking rich and stupidly ignorant in the 'better' part of the world while our fellow human beings, our fellow brothers and sisters are being treated horrifically and we do nothing about it.